Popular's popular teen
By Jim Bawden Toronto Star
(Canadian actress Carly Pope deals with the pitfalls of sudden fame)

LOS ANGELES - On the surface, this seems an average high school. The bell rings, and students change classes, doing those goofy things in the halls students do. But suddenly, a microphone's shadow appears over the face of a pert blonde teen, and she forgets what she's supposed to say. ``Cut!'' bawls the TV director. ``It's lunchtime anyway. We start up again in exactly one hour, ladies and gentlemen.'' The gigantic studio lights are doused, revealing the school to be a false-front set - there's nothing behind it but cardboard props. And the students don't traipse over to the cafeteria. They meander into the California sunshine. A few - the lucky ones - go off to their trailers. Welcome to high school, TV-style: A huge soundstage at the Disney Burbank studios alive with the sound of sawing and hammering as new sets roll into place. This is the world of Popular, one of the teen series to hit the small screen this season (it's on Thursdays at 8). This is also the world of Canadian actress Carly Pope. She plays the lead, 16-year-old ``Sam'' McPherson, who's beautiful, articulate and ultra-serious. The 19-year-old Pope wasn't on-set, but was at home sleeping. There'd been a late shoot the night before, the publicist explained. But in an interview that evening, it was a bubbly Pope who was awake and eager to talk about the pitfalls of instant stardom. ``Look, this could all vanish,'' she said, suddenly very serious. ``I'm approaching this as great experience. Evey day, I'm acting in front of the cameras and I'm bound to emerge as a better actress. But who knows the future? I could wind up the best Grade 1 teacher in the world.'' Though she's been acting ``two whole years,'' Pope originally wanted to be a dancer. She started studying acting at Vancouver's Lord Byng Secondary school. An agent saw her in a ``high school thing'' and cast her in an independent children's feature film. She has two movies - TV's A Cooler Climate with Sally Field, and Snow Day with Chevy Chase, which is awaiting release. ``An agent sent in a video audition and Disney phoned and flew me to L.A.,'' she says about her journey to Popular. ``I went before the network programmers and got the part. ``At first I wasn't ready to move from home. But I couldn't turn down such an opportunity. My dad came with me to scout around and look for an apartment. I get to go home to Vancouver every month-and-a-half. But I really miss my family.'' If things haven't been that smooth for Pope, well, they haven't been that smooth for her show, either. ``Getting on the air was the first hurdle,'' says Popular's 30-something creator and executive producer, Ryan Murphy. ``Staying on is another thing. We're not another teen melodrama. I wanted to marry comedy with tragedy to slightly send up the whole genre. This show is for everybody who survived high school.'' Murphy uses a number of techniques to give the series a kinetic feel: split screens, satire (one episode sent up blaxploitation films), dream sequences (prom queens sporting gowns that light up), a surrealistic ``telephone time'' (all the characters talk on their cells phones at once). ``I've gone beyond reality,'' Murphy says from his cluttered office on the lot. ``I've really pushed the button. Our look comes from designer Carol Ramsey, who did four Merchant-Ivory films. The clothes, cars, furniture are all taken from the 1960s. ``I wanted to call the school Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy High, but her estate refused permission.'' Murphy says the public is gradually getting the show's parody theme. Ratings are growing and he's had requests for tapes from the likes of Steven Spielberg and Gwyneth Paltrow. But with all the buzz, Pope still isn't quite used to her new home. Hollywood is ``a strange place. I went to my first awards ceremony with a friend and it was crazy. Young girls clustered around me, wanting my autograph. I got flustered and scared. I don't want to ever be the centre of attention.'' Pope shudders when she's told the full blast of publicity has yet to appear. Where can she hide once she's on the cover of the teen magazines? Pope says she ``survived high school. It wasn't that bad. But now I'm back where I was three years ago. I try to be grown up but I'm this kid again. Then I look at all the talent around me. And I know I'm in a good place. It's been a crazy ride so far.''

HOW "Trapped in a Purple Haze," made it as a TV movie in this day of "historical" recreations of the lives of the saints (rock 'n' rollers and others usually still alive) and dumb-and-dumber woman-as-victim movies is beyond me. Why? Because "Trapped in a Purple Haze," is really, really good. It's good almost in the way TV movies were good in the '70's when they made things like "Brian's Song." (About a dead football player, instead of a living legend.) If you weren't alive then, let me explain. Once upon a time, when variety shows were king and TV movies were a new idea, networks made good movies. Then, tragically, Earth was invaded by idiots from outer space who stole the brains of TV execs. Then these uncreative monsters declared that only Armand Assante and Jaclyn Smith (and if she was busy, Meredith Baxter or Jane Seymour) could star in TV movies. Not that I don't consider myself a lover/connoisseur of cheese-ola, but even I can't bear to see Armand Assante's face one more time. Then, out of nowhere comes this actual, wrenching, and at times even harrowing made-for-TV movie about heroin addiction. Not pretty and not too prettied up, either. It stars Jonathan Jackson (Max) as a nice upper middle class kid who's a day student at the local university. He comes from a really nice family, which includes a mother who is an artist/pain-in-the-butt, a father who is the nicest guy in the world (but not too strong), a regular little sister, and a gay older brother who, for once, is played as a normal human who just happens to be gay. Max is a really good hockey player whose mother thinks she's got the next Picasso on her hands. He's not a bad painter, but he's just a regular kid who's an art major but would rather be playing hockey. On campus, Max runs into Molly (Carly Pope from "Popular") who is more of a free spirit than he's used to. She's pretty, she's sexy and she's semi-dangerous. Actually she's very dangerous. On their first date, she introduces him to snorting horse. He doesn't. She clearly isn't impressed and he figures she'll never see him again. But he's hooked - on her - and when she agrees to see him again, he does snort, mostly because he doesn't want her to think he's just a dorky jock. He vomits his brains out in front of her. He talks to his older brother Brian about it, knowing that he'd done drugs when he was in school. The brother neither condemns him nor encourages him, but just tells him that it's a road that can be pretty dangerous. Then Molly introduces Max to needles and their recreation becomes habit. It's ugly to watch them tying off and vomiting and shaking, and sweating. It's also riveting. We watch Max's decline, and at times you feel like it's your own kid. When Molly becomes really hooked, Max goes nuts trying to get money for her. He loses his job at the video store and eventually steals from his father. I'm not going to tell you what happens because that would ruin it. But, even my own personal love interest (who, as I've mentioned before, refuses to watch anything that doesn't involve space aliens and karate) was watching it. The acting is first rate and so is the writing (Mimi Schmir). Jackson is so good as the kid that it's really tough to watch him decline. It's tough to watch but also very watchable. In fact, watch it with a kid tonight. It's a lot more relevant than "This is your brain, this is your brain on drugs."

Two of the hottest young stars on two of the hottest new teen shows grew up watching Degrassi. Carly Pope and Brendan Fehr both left Vancouver to audition for WB's sci-fi coming of age series Roswell. Fehr got the part of Michael Guerin. Pope ended up landing the lead role on another WB series, Popular. "Brendan and I are best friends. We came down together, then he moved in with me for while," Pope says. "It's so nice to know that we're going through parallel situations so we can share." Fehr, B.C. born and Winnipeg raised, also made a few new friends. "I've actually become close with people from That '70s Show. I met Wilmer Valderrama at a couple of charities and stuff and he introdued me to Topher (Grace) and Mila (Kunis)," he says. "Coming down here, you're afraid of the Hollywood kids. They always want to go the bar, they want to do this and that. They weren't interested in that." It seems this is far from a brat pack. "We go bowling and go to diners and just sit there. We're content to sit on a couch. That's what my friends in Winnipeg are like and I was really concerned I wouldn't find anyone like that." Leaving her friends and family in Vancouver hasn't been easy for Pope. "It's just hard. I'm very close to family and friends. I'm down here physically but emotionally everything's back there," Pope says.

Carly Pope nails it as the bright, independent 16-year-old Sam in "Popular" (8 p.m. Thursdays on The WB). The 19-year-old actress plays a high school newspaper editor who juggles a crush on a high school counselor, a rivalry with the school's cheerleader clique and loyalty to her clique of malcontents. Born and raised in Vancouver, Pope and her brother, also an actor, now live in L.A.